The present invention relates to unmanned aerial vehicles, and unmanned submersible vehicles. More particularly, the invention relates to a combined submersible vessel and unmanned aerial vehicle, and to methods for operating same.
In today's security conscience environment, especially in view of the Sep. 11, 2001 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, many countries, including the United States of America, are increasing their border surveillance resources. However, while security in terms of terrorism is omni-present, many other agencies are also interested in border surveillance, including the Federal Bureau of investigation (FBI), the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (U.S. DEA), and the U.S. Border Patrol, as well as many other state and local government agencies. All of these U.S. agencies, and their foreign counterparts, are extremely interested in protecting their citizens from illegal immigration, narcotics, and other law breakers seeking to cross borders to evade or escape capture, or to commit other crimes.
Any one of the above-noted agencies wants to conduct what is known as intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) operations below the surface of the water (to capture drug smugglers that are learning to make and use submersible vehicles), at the surface (especially the use of “cigarette” type speedboats), and above the surface (in the air, using multi-prop turbo-prop aircraft). Today this requires the use of multiple specialized assets: unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs), and unmanned submersible vehicles (USVs). Having one asset that can cover all three environments would be a very cost effective means of conducting ISR operations to capture and or prevent such lawbreaking activities.
In the past, efforts have been made to build true flying submarines, but with limited success. One well-known effort is the Reid Flying Submarine, which is described in “The Flying Submarine: The Story of the Invention of the Reid Flying Submarine,” by Bruce Reid Heritage Books, Inc. (October 2004), and detailed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,092,060 to D. V. Reid. In the '060 patent, one propeller is used for surface and submerged propulsion, while another propeller is used for flight. Surface and submerged vehicles are described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,237,952 “Variable Attitude Submersible Hydrofoil”, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,373,800 “Sea Vessel.” Neither is capable of sustained flight.
Thus, a need exists for a surveillance asset with the ability to conduct ISR operations below the surface of the water, at the air-sea interface, and above the surface of the sea, in the air.